January 12th, 2015
Courtesy of The Financial Times, an update on Guo Guangchang:
Guo Guangchang, an entrepreneur who claims inspiration from China’s oldest sages - as well as from the “sage of Omaha”, Warren Buffett – has topped an inaugural ranking of the wealthiest Chinese investors with a personal fortune estimated at $4.5bn.
Guo, 48, typifies the eclectic acquisitiveness of China’s emerging cohort of investors. His company, Fosun International, this month won the longest takeover battle in French history by beating Italian investor Andrea Bonomi to take control of Club Méditerranée, the vacation organiser, after a 16-month wrestling match.
Club Med settles alongside Fosun’s lengthening list of overseas assets. In recent years it has also bought St John, a US fashion brand, Alma Lasers, an Israeli cosmetic laser company, Saladax, a US biomedical company, Caruso, an Italian luxury menswear brand, Lloyds Chambers, a building in London and One Chase Manhattan Plaza, a 60-storey tower in Lower Manhattan that was build by David Rockefeller.
Another Fosun executive, Liang Xinjun, who is CEO, also made it into the Top 10 of the Hurun Midas Rich List, a ranking announced on Monday by the Hurun Report, a Shanghai-based magazine run by Rupert Hoogewerf, who also compiles the “China Rich List”.
Guo is known as the “Warren Buffett of China”, after the CEO of US investment firm Berkshire Hathaway. But he himself demurs at the title, casting himself as Buffett’s student. “We’re learning from his investment methods,” Guo was quoted as saying.
His own investment philosophy derives much from Tai Chi, the slow-moving Chinese martial art. “The aim of tai chi is not to strike first to gain dominance over an opponent but to wait and hit at the right moment,” he told the FT last year. “That is, to be the first one to take action after feeling the change in momentum. Investing is similar to doing tai chi.”
The “Midas Rich List” (see the top 20 below), named after the king in Greek mythology who turned everything he touched to gold, reveals several common characteristics among the men and women who are scouring China and the world for choice investment assets.
Common characteristics
The 87 Chinese investors included in the list – 12 of whom are women – have an average wealth of $420m and an average age of 49. Some 60 per cent were educated overseas and the majority (35) keep their head office in Beijing but, surprisingly, 20 are headquartered in the US. Venture capitalists comprised 52 per cent of the list, while 42 per cent worked in private equity and 6 per cent were angel investors.The average investment company size was only 30 people, although they control companies with many thousands of people, according to research by the Hurun Report. In terms of zodiac signs, a preponderance of wealthy investors happened to be born in the year of the dragon, rabbit and rooster (12 per cent each), while only 3 per cent were born in the year of the dog.
While some companies are increasingly searching overseas for growth and returns, the majority – such as Capital Today run by the top ranking woman investor, Kathy Xu Xin (below) – have been fully engaged by opportunities in the domestic market.
Since 2005, Xu’s fund has invested in Tudou, a video sharing website, Z-Kungfu, a fast-food chain, Ganji, a classified ads website, Inoherb, a green cosmetics company, Zbird, an online diamond retailer and JD.com, an electronic e-commerce company.
When JD.com went public, Xu made more than 100 times her initial investment, according to the Hurun Report.
“The stories of these people tell the story of the investment sector in China and many of them are the unsung heroes behind China’s most successful companies,” Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher at the Hurun Report, said.
“I see a clear trend of entrepreneurs in China actively moving towards becoming investors,” he added. “You can see this through more and more studying EMBAs, and significantly all of them wanting to send their children to the world’s top universities to study finance.”
This entry was posted on Monday, January 12th, 2015 at 8:58 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Educated at Yale University (Bachelor of Arts - History) and Harvard (Master in Public Policy - International Development), Monty Simus has lived, worked, and traveled in more than forty countries spanning Africa, China, western Europe, the Middle East, South America, and Southeast & Central Asia, and his personal interests comprise economic development, policy, investment, technology, natural resources, and the environment, with a particular focus on globalization’s impact upon these subject areas. Monty writes about frontier investment markets at www.wildcatsandblacksheep.com and geopolitical pressures in the global agricultural sector at www.seedsofarevolution.com.